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History of The Kewaskum Statesman Newspaper
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The Kewaskum Statesman was founded by Charles E. Krahn on October 5, 1895 in a small wooden building formerly located on the west side of the Nic. Marx building, where John's on Main is currently located.
In November, 1897 it was moved to a larger building next to Lay Lumber Company which is now the downtown Kewaskum parking lot. The establishment remained at that location until it was moved again to a location at the intersection of Main Street and Fond du Lac Avenue, sometime prior to 1912.
George Schmidt purchased a one-half interest in the paper in April, 1909 and became the sole owner in September, 1910.
On November 25, 1916 Arthur W. Schaefer and Don Harbeck jointly purchased the newspaper from Schmidt. The two published the newspaper weekly until Schaefer passed away on January 9, 1932.
At that time Harbeck became the sole owner of the newspaper. William Harbeck, Don's son then became involved in publishing the newspaper.
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In January of 1988 Bill and Marcie's youngest daughter Lana Harbeck Kuehl took over as editor/publisher of the newspaper. Bill Harbeck died on August 10, 1988 after touching thousands of lives through his family's newspaper.
In 1992 the paper switched over to being produced on Macintosh computers from Compugraphic Imagesetters. Lana's oldest son, Andrew Harbeck Kuehl became an active staff member in 1996 making him the fourth generation of the family to enter the newspaper industry. He is currently is Managing Editor of the weekly newspaper.
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The Harbeck-Kuehl's began publishing an online version of the weekly printed newspaper in August of 2002.Subscribers were then able to submit news, renew subscriptions and order classified ads online 24 hours a day 365 days a year.
In September of 2004 The Statesman sold their building at 250 Main Street and moved to 355 Main Street. After a little over a year, another move to 240 Main Street took place. At one time, Don Harbeck's daughter and son-in-law operated a Gambles store in the building.
On November 1, 2004 The Statesman began delivering the publication in full color much to the delight of the growing readership.
On January 1, 2008 Andrew and Nicole Kuehl (Lana's son and daughter-in-law) purchased the business. The two are the youngest print newspaper publishers in the State of Wisconsin. They are the fourth generation of the Harbeck-Kuehl family to own and operate the publication.
The Statesman operates with a staff of five full-time staff members and three part-time staff. Andrew and Nicole oversee all aspects of the operation of the newspaper, Lana Harbeck Kuehl serves as Copy Editor, Cheryl Kuehl leads the Advertising Department and Patrick Neumuth handles all sports as Sports Editor. Bonnie Wenzlaff works part-time in advertising sales.
The average paper consists of 24 pages with 3,500 subscribers. In addition to the weekly paper, Statesman Printing and Publishing LLC produces a number of full color niche publications that are distributed throughout southeastern Wisconsin.
The Harbeck-Kuehl family is proud of it's 86 year old heritage of the paper's 113 year existence in the Village of Kewaskum and is proud to be one of the few family owned newspaper's across the state of Wisconsin.
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Shown above is a photo of Donald J. Harbeck. Don was the first member of the Harbeck family to publish the weekly Kewaskum Statesman. Don is shown with various scenes from Kewaskum from the 1930's. He is shown in the center of these scenes because he, and the newspaper were, the center of the community.
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Donald Harbeck shown as he entered the newspaper business. Donald was the first of the Harbeck family to enter into the newspaper business. Little did Don know that one day his granddaughter Lana and great-grandson Andrew would team up to take the newspaper into the 21st century.
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Former Publishers Marcie and
(late) William Harbeck
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Current Statesman Publisher Andrew Kuehl grew up in the business and made his dream of fourth generation ownership a reality on January 1, 2008.
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Statesman Publishers Nicole and Andrew Kuehl
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